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THE MENACE TO THE IDEAL 
OF THE FREE STATE 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE 

OCCASION OF FOUNDERS' DAY 

AT URSINUS COLLEGE 



BY JOHN A. W. HAAS, D.D., L.L.D., 
PRESIDENT OF MUHLENBERG 
COLLEGE, ALLENTOWN, PENNA. 



ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA 
NINETEEN EIGHTEEN 



^ 






LITTLE BOOKS INTIMATELY RE 
LATED TO MUHLENBERG COL 
LEGE, PRINTED & ARRANGED 
INTO A BOOK IN THE COLLEGE 
PRINTSHOP ON THE CAMPUS 
MCM X VIII 



liAY 6 »t8 



I THE MENACE TO THE IDEAL 
^ OF THE FREE STATE 



TF EVER there was a time when it be- 
hooved us to utter with a new, larger 
significance, Longfellow's prayer for the 
ship of state, it is today. We can and we 
ought to say : 

"Sail on, O Ship of State; 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all its hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate." 

Today the hopes of men are not fast- 
ened upon the continuance of our own in- 
ternal union or upon the permanence of 
our republic, but upon the larger problem 
of the continuance of freedom and democ- 
racy in the world. On our fate and the fate 
of those with us men are hanging breath- 

[1] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

less. But our fate must be made express- 
ive of our faith. We are standing before 
all humanity as the guarantors of a cer- 
tain ideal of the state. The hopes of all 
the centuries hang at this time on the re- 
alization among men of the ideal for which 
we have long contended, and which thru 
no desire of our own we must now defend 
in the interests of the world and of all 
humanity as over against another ideal. 
The political significance of the present 
world-struggle has come into clear sight. 
It is very important to realize that ideas 
lie back of the actions which are disturb- 
ing men to-day. The type of political the- 
ory which men believe in determines 
what the world shall be. The problem of 
the war at present can be reduced to these 
simple terms: - which state shall win, the 
state of free democracy or the state of 
autocratic monarchy. It is our duty to 
understand the type of absolute state a- 
gainst which we are fighting, and to 
strengthen our conviction of the justice of 

[2] 



EAL OF THE FRE E STATE 

the type of free state for which we are 
fighting. The world has been thrown into 
turmoil because of the absolute concep- 
tion of the state, and the world must final- 
ly be delivered by the ideal of the free 
state taking its place on a common basis a- 
mong the parliament of states. In the lat- 
ter ideal alone lies the promise of perma- 
nent peace for the world. 

Let us clearly understand the abso- 
lute state which we are opposing, and let 
us endeavor to portray its theory and the 
development of its theory. We shall then 
realize that the results of the war as con- 
ducted by the absolute state are really the 
terrors of the theory. What has been done 
and is being done to shock humanity is 
no accident, but it is the outcome of the 
power of the absolute state. When we be- 
gin definitely to know the theory that 
menaces the whole world, we can more 
strongly unite our forces and more joy- 
fully uphold our standards. It is necessary 
to travel backward some distance to the 

[3] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

beginnings of the nineteenth century in 
order to understand how the present the- 
ories of a Treitschke, a Bernhardi, a Las- 
son, a Naumann, a Tannenberg, and the 
whole group of German political thinkers 
and publicists have arisen. Among them 
all there is such a unity of ideals of the 
state and such a conformity of political 
belief and outlook that we can only ex- 
plain it as shaped by consistent influences 
and ideas of the past. The unity and con- 
sistency of political belief has created 
the kind of diplomacy and warfare which 
has shocked us so strongly. 

The present German political think- 
ing of the modern type takes its beginning 
in German development like all great prob- 
lems with the sage of Koenigsberg. The 
thoughtful and critical philosopher, Kant, 
had been deeply moved by our own war 
of independence. On the other hand the 
development of the French Revolution, 
whose ideals of right he had favored and 
whose conceptions of the just demands of 

[4] 



EAL QFTHE FREE STATE 

the people had taken hold of him, drove 
him into a reactionary position. In addition 
his own timidity and his own experience 
of the power of the Prussian state influ- 
enced him to turn aside from conceiving 
of the state internally in a republican form. 
Altho he advocated an eternal peace for 
the different states of the world, and real- 
ly outlined the plan for a general court of 
arbitration and a common league of nat- 
ions, nevertheless his devotion to mon- 
archy in the life of the individual state 
made of no effect his dream of a world 
peace. Never, said Kant, should a people 
overthrow a monarchy, even under al- 
most intolerable abuses of monarchical 
power. He held that a people should sim- 
ply suffer the injustice of a ruler. To oppose 
a ruler means that a people takes unto it- 
self political power. Such an action in the 
judgment of Kant destroys order and 
brings about anarchy. In contrast with 
anarchy every existing form of the state 
even tho it be founded upon mere power is 

[5] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

just because it is orderly. An effort to 
overthrow the reigning powers thru rebel 
lion or an endeavor to remove them is 
morally wrong. Assassination of a mon- 
arch is parricide. Such an action is abso- 
lutely subversive of justice. With all his 
critical freedom, Kant nevertheless bows 
to the rising power of the Prussian state 
and endeavors to establish by reason the 
duty of unquestioning obedience to every 
action of the state. The seeming dawn of 
republican ideas in his mind never led to 
daylight. It was darkened by devotion to 
the monarchical ideal in its strongest 
form. 

But it is in Kant's successor, Fichte, 
that we discover the origin of the preach- 
ments and of the philosophy which makes 
excessive claims for German culture as 
essential to the world. Fichte, who rests 
everything on the freedom of the ego, con- 
ceives of the state as the co-existence of 
reasonable beings who mutually recog- 
nize each other as free beings and are 

[6] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

willing to limit their freedom that there 
may be a common right. But this com- 
mon right when it is established must be 
a common will. It is the first task of the 
state to find a will which is altogether a 
common will and with which the private 
will of men is united. In this state Fichte 
desires the inner development of industry 
and commerce to take place. He wants 
the state industrially closed as condition- 
ed by its own natural boundaries. There 
is no conception of a necessary world-rel- 
ationship. Fichte's state is Spartan in its 
emphasis on will. For him the only inter- 
ests that can unite men are those of sci- 
ence. In all other efforts nations must re- 
serve their own strength in their own life. 
With this theory Fichte combines an in- 
tense nationalism and an extravagant 
patriotism. He is at one with the German 
poets Arndt and Koerner and Geibel, who 
has coined the phrase, ''Es muss durch 
deutsches Wesen, noch einmal die Welt 
genesen." The world is to be cured thru 

[7] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 



Germany. With the great idealistic out- 
burst at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century and the just desire of Germany 
for its national freedom, there is combin- 
ed the tremendous claim that Germany's 
ideal must become the ideal of the world. 
In its freedom it believes itself capable and 
competent to become the leader of man- 
kind. This overweening pride which 
seems to disregard or undervalue the cul- 
tural mission of other nations, and which 
claims as Teutonic everything that is ex- 
cellent in the life of other people, found 
its first expression in Fichte's great Ad- 
dresses to the German Nation. He believes 
that spiritual renewal can come only from 
the Germans. Toward the end of the last 
address he says, "The old world with its 
glory and greatness and with its defects 
has gone under; thru its own unworthi- 
ness and thru the power of your forefath- 
ers. If that which has been discussed in 
these addresses is truth, then you are the 
nation among all modern nations, in which 

[8] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

the germ of human perfectibility is most 
definitely found, and upon which prog- 
ress in the development toward perfection 
has been placed as a task. If you in your 
inner reality succumb, then the hope of 
the whole human race to be delivered out 
of the depths of its evil must succumb." 
"There is no escape; if you go under, all 
mankind sinks with you without the hope 
of any possible restoration." * This ideal 
of Fichte of the absolute necessity of Ger- 
many and Germany's culture for the world 
has taken hold increasingly upon German 
thinking. A part of the pan -German 
movement has been the effort to trans- 
late into actuality the belief that Germany 
is the cultural saviour of the world. An 
overpowering pride has possessed the 
minds of modern German thinkers as 
representatives of a great national claim 
and mission. No matter how humble 



* Kuno Fischer, Geschicte der neuern Philosophic, 
vol.6, p. 649; Fichte's Reden an die deutsche Nation, 
xiv, p. 481 ff . 

[9] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

scholars might be as individuals there was 
back of their thought this national prej- 
udice of the superiority of German cul- 
ture and its call to be the apostle of de- 
liverance and salvation for all mankind. 
The fact that this culture must be carried 
forward thru a nation and that this nation 
must express itself thru a strong will is 
an essential German conviction. 

But the final influence was not the 
cultural ideal of Fichte, but the concep- 
tions which the last thinker of the ideal- 
istic school, Hegel, advocated. All his 
thinking endeavored to prove the essen- 
tial movement of absolute reason. Because 
of this he despised the revolutionary ef- 
forts of his age. Thru the stages of posi- 
tion, negation and combination, his blood- 
less reason led him to see in the state the 
embodiment of the final and absolute 
spirit. The spirit as it became an object 
in the world was embodied in ethical life 
and this found its full expression in the 
state. From this point of view he glori- 

[10] 



EAL OF THE FRE E STATE 

fied Frederick II of Prussia as the mon- 
arch who conceived the universal pur- 
pose of the state, and who was the first 
among rulers to maintain this universality 
and to allow no place for that v/hich was 
individual if it opposed the purpose of the 
state. The state is not to serve but to rule; 
it is not a means but an end, and the 
highest of all ends and purposes. Because 
the state rules and has itself as an end it 
is will, and all other purposes of human 
life must be subject to the state because 
it is the universal will. Within it all spe- 
cial and separate interests are combined 
and organized. It is the moral organism. 
And because its purposes are reason and 
will, therefore the state is spirit, and truly 
objective spirit. Every individual must 
seek his purpose and his ideals in the un- 
iversal will of the state. There can be no 
attainment of any particular purpose or 
any individual welfare except in and thru 
the state. There is nothing higher in this 
world than the state, and its absolute 

[11] 



THE MENACE T O THE ID 

sovereignty is represented in the person 
of a monarch. For the maintenance of 
the state as the essential moral organism 
war is necessary. The existence and the 
non-existence of the state is involved in 
war. Wars may be terrible, but they are 
necessary for moral reasons, because they 
protect the state against inner decay and 
cowardice. We must experience the loss 
of all earthly goods and this experience 
leading even to the loss of life is only pos- 
sible thru war. In the movements of war 
Hegel saw the soul of the world riding 
majestically thru the world. The state and 
its government is, therefore, the incarna- 
tion of absolute reason and absolute just- 
ice as expressed in absolute will. This 
ideal of the state is not the aristocratic 
dream of a Plato, who still thinks of a 
republic. It is not the city of God of Au- 
gustine, who conceives of the Church as 
an institution that brings God's rule thru 
Christ into the world. The state of Hegel 
is absolute logic far beyond the idea of 

[12] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

any personal God. It is a pantheistic glor- 
ification of the state which Prussia trans- 
lated into actuality. Hegel's government 
is founded "by the sublime force' of great 
men, not by physical strength. The great 
man has something in his features so that 
others gladly call him lord. They obey 
him against their will. Their immediate 
will is his will, but their conscious will 

is otherwise This is the prerogative of 

the great man to ascertain and to express 
the absolute will. All gather around his 
banner. He is their God." ''The State is 
the self-certain absolute mind which re- 
cognizes no definite authority but its own ; 
which acknowledges no abstract rules of 
good and bad, shameful and mean, craft 
and deception." "It is absolutely only uni- 
versality as against particularism. As this 
absolute, ideal, universal, compared to 
which everything else is particular, it is 
the phenomenon of God. Its words are 
his decision, and it can appear and exist 
under no other form. . . The absolute 

[13] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 



government is divine, self -sanctioned and 
not made." * Thus we find in Hegel the 
complete basis for the right of the state 
expressing itself in will, the state as above 
all morality, as God Himself, and as the 
complete organic whole of morality. Heg- 
el became the father of the whole Prus- 
sian conception of the state, its super- 
idealizing of the state, and its justification 
of war. Every extravagant utterance trans- 
lated into adlual pradlice by modern pol- 
litical thinkers of Germany is the out- 
come of the glorification of the state which 
Hegel created. 

The great philosopher of pessimism, 
Schopenhauer, reverts to Kant's pra(5ti- 
cal philosophy of will and to Fichte's em- 
phasis of the will in the ego, while he un- 
consciously also carries forward Hegel's 
accentuation of will. He ^ands for the 



* For this whole view of Hegel, see Kuno Fischer, 
Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, v. viii, pp. 726, 
738, 807. Hegel, System der SittHchkeit, p. 32 ff. 
Wallace, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, p. clxxxii. 

[14] 



EAL QFT HE FREE STATE 

claim of egoism, as the affirmation of the 
will to live. It is this affirmation that 
makes right or wrong. Wrong mu^ be 
opposed by the negation of the will that 
opposes, and mu^ be met thru the ex- 
ternal power of forcible self-protedion. 
Where this power does not avail, the 
secret influence of the lie of necessity must 
be exerted. Since all men have the will 
to live, we need an in^itution which pro- 
tects them againsl: interference with their 
right to hve. The in^itution which guards 
this right thru power is the ^ate. Nothing 
injures the ^ate as much as anarchy, 
which is a return to primitive conditions. 
In its beat form the s^ate becomes a con- 
stitutional monarchy. Thus even this 
great thinker who elsewhere desires to 
be delivered from evil thru sympathy is 
the exponent of will and finds the protec- 
tion of the will to live only in the univer- 
sal will of the ^ate. 

The great disciple of the philosopher 
of the will to live is the preacher of the 

[15] 



THE MEN ACE TO THE ID 

will to power, the creator of the blonde 
bea^,the erratic but influential Nietzsche. 
He says, 'There is nothing in life that has 
value except the degree of power -- as- 
suming that life itself is this will to pow- 
er."* The new gospel of this preacher of 
power is "Be hard." It is opposed to the 
old value of a man as a man. Man is only 
the ladder to the superman. His import- 
ance is his power. For this reason the 
Chri^ian morality which protefe the 
weak must be destroyed, because the 
weak are the bad. The strong are those 
that are right and are just. We need mor- 
ality for lords and not for slaves. The old 
God of mercy is dead. The new God is 
power, and power makes the strong cause 
the good cause. Thus the good cause hal- 
lows war, and it is the good war which 
hallows every cause. War and courage 
have done more and truer and better 
things than charity. These and similar 



* Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, Taschen-Aus- 

gabe, Vol 9, p. 15. 

[16] 



EAL OF THE FR EE STATE 

ideas sound like the f ulminations of a mad 
philosopher, and madness was the end of 
the life of the brilliant Nietzsche. But un- 
fortunately the madness of Nietzsche en- 
thused young Germany and became the 
convidlion of a growing generation. And 
the state understood how to turn this 
materialistic aberration into the channel 
of service for its own advantage. The 
heathenish ideals of Nietzsche were adopt- 
ed, and during this war their practice 
confirms the fa6l that they were believ- 
ed in. 

The modern Germany has found its 
clearest expositor of the ideals of the Ger- 
man state in the lectures on politics by 
Treitschke, which were permitted and en- 
dorsed as the Prussian and German con- 
ception. According to this approved pro- 
fessor at the University of Berlin, the 
mouthpiece in 1890 and the following 
years of the empire of William I, and of 
Bismarck, the state is not the work of sin- 
ful man, but "the objectively revealed 

[17] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

Will of God"^ as unfolded in its life. The 
state is a real personality *' in a juridical 
and in a politico-moral sense."'' The cen- 
ter of this personality is will. "The state 
must have the most emphatic will that can 
be imagined."'^ It is the great collective 
personality and must assert itself. It is 
" power, precisely in order to assert itself 
as against other equally independent pow- 
ers. War and the administration of justice 
are the tasks of even the most barbaric 
states.""^ The strong will of different na- 
tions is bound to come into confiidt, but 
"the grandeur of hi^ory lies in the per- 
petual conflidl of nations, and it is simply 
foolish to desire the suppression of their 
rivalry. Mankind has ever found it to be 
so."^ The glory of all history is founded 
on the bT:ory of the nations, of which every 
one has its will of power and is absolute- 

a H. von Treitschke, Politics, Vol. I, p. 13. 
b Ibid. Vol. I, p. 15. 
c Ibid. Vol. I, p. 16. 
d Ibid. Vol. I, p. 19. 

e Ibid. Vol. I, p. 21. 

[18] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

ly sovereign. "No limit can be set to the 
fundtions of the state."* It must dominate 
the outer life of its members, and must 
find that its duty is to go far beyond the 
minimum that assures its very existence. 
"We then see at once that its fir^l duty 
is the double one of maintaining power 
without and law within, and its primary 
obligations mu^ be the care of its Army 
and its Jurisprudence."^ Since the army 
is essential to the life of the state and be- 
longs to its very nature, the state musl 
maintain itself in full power and sl:rength, 
and therefore war is necessary to its ex- 
istence. "Without war no state could be. 
All those we know of arose thru war, and 
the protedion of their members by arm- 
ed force remains their primary and essen- 
tial task. War, therefore will endure to 
the end of history, as long as there is a 
multiplicity of states. The laws of hu- 
man thought and of human nature for- 



i Ibid. Vol. I. p. 63. 
6 Ibid. Vol. I, p. 63. 



[19] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

bid any alternative, neitlier is one to be 
wished for. The blind worshipper of an 
eternal peace falls into the error of isolat- 
ing the state, or dreams of one which is 
universal, which we have already seen to 
be at variance with reason."^ When a 
state declares war, it is performing an in- 
evitable duty, and because this ideal of 
force is essential, no international law and 
no arbitration must take away the right 
of the state and the right of war, for " war 
is both justifiable and moral, and the ideal 
of perpetual peace is not only impossible, 
but immoral as well."* "The state is no 
violet to bloom unseen ; its power should 
stand forth proudly for all the world to 
see, and it cannot allow even the symbols 
of it to be contested."^ AH restraints to 
which the state, therefore, binds itself are 
purely voluntary, and consequently, " all 
treaties are concluded on the tacit under- 



h Ibid. Vol. I, p. 65. 
i Ibid. Vol. II, p. 599. 
j Ibid. Vol. II, p. 595. 



[20] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

standing rebus sic stantibus. "^ The state 
has power at any time to abrogate its 
treaties. To maintain such a state mon- 
archy is an essential, and to maintain 
monarchy it is necessary to assert its 
divine right which means "that the in- 
scrutable will of Providence has decreed 
the elevation of a particular family above 
its rivals-"^ Any one who is called provi- 
dentially as a member of a select family 
to rule must have high qualifications. 
Among these "piety is a fundamental re- 
quirement in a monarch, since the notion 
that he stands immeasurably above all 
other men may actually unsettle his rea- 
son, if it be not balanced by personal 
humility which compels him to acknow- 
ledge himself God's instrument. All this 
does not abrogate the axiom that it is the 
nature and aim of monarchy to be of 
this world. Genuine monarchy does not 



kibid.. Vol. II p. 596. 
I Ibid. Vol. II. p. 59. 



[213 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

aspire to partnership with the Almighty."'" 
Unfortunately this fundamental require- 
ment of a monarchy is exceedingly hard 
to observe, and therefore, the very fear of 
Treitschke has been realized thru William 
II, who has claimed partnership with the 
Almighty, for he said in a speech of March 
28, 1901, " We shall conquer everywhere, 
even though we be surrounded by ene- 
mies on all sides ; for there lives a power- 
ful ally, the old good God in heaven, who 
. . . has always been on our side." The 
theory of Treitschke is the clear exposi- 
tion of all that the Prussian state is and 
all that the German Empire stands for, 
and it has been endorsed by the actions 
and deeds of the German Empire. 

Another theorist who has seconded 
Treitschke in every way is Lasson. In his 
conception of the ideal of culture and the 
war he said "separate states are therefore 
by nature in a state of war with each 
other. Conflidt must be regarded as the 



m Ibid. Vol. II, p. 59. 

[22] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

essence of their relations and as the rule, 
friendship as accidental and exceptional." 
'Tn the intercourse of State with State 
there are no laws, and there can be none." 
** Everything in the State must be calcu- 
lated for the possibility of war." "In pol- 
itics decisions may be postponed, but 
when the opportunity presents itself, let 
him who has the power and feels him- 
self prepared cut the knot with the sword. 
For great historical questions this is the 
only rational and permanent solution."" 

The fullest development of the ne- 
cessity of war as the expression of the life 
of the state has been given by Bernhardi. 
He says, "All petty and personal interests 
force their way to the front during a long 
period of peace. Selfishness and intrigue 
run riot, and luxury obliterates idealism."^ 
He believes that only for the sake of mon- 
ey-making do we Americans endeavor to 



n Out of their own Mouths, Appleton & Co. 
1917, p. 35 ff. 
t Germany and the Next War, Bernhardi, p. 26. 

[23] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 



escape war. War, he believes, is essen- 
tially approved by Christianity. He says, 
"Christian morality is based, indeed on 
the law of love. 'Love God above all things, 
and thy neighbor as thyself.' This law 
can claim no significance for the relations 
of one country to another, since its appli- 
cation to politics would lead to a confiidt 
of duties. The love which a man showed 
to another country as such would imply 
a want of love for his own countrymen. 
Such a system of politics must inevitably 
lead men astray. Christian morality is 
personal and social, and in its nature can- 
not be political. Its object is to promote 
morality of the individual, in order to 
strengthen him to work unselfishly in the 
interests of the community. It tells us to 
love our individual enemies, but does not 
remove the conception of enmity. Christ 
Himself said: *I am not come to send peace 
on earth, but a sword.' His teaching can 
never be adduced as an argument against 
the universal law of druggie. There nev- 

[24] 



EAL QF THE FRE E STATE 

er was a religion which was more com- 
bative than Christianity. Combat, moral 
combat, is its very essence. If we transfer 
the ideas of Chri^ianity to the sphere of 
politics, we can claim to raise the power 
of the State - power in the widest sense, 
not merely from the material aspedt - to 
the highest degree, with the object of the 
moral advancement of humanity, and un- 
der certain conditions the sacrifice may 
be made which a war demands. Thus, ac- 
cording to Chri^ianity we cannot disap- 
prove of war in itself, but must admit 
that it is justified morally and historical- 
ly."" The necessity of war is found in 
the necessity of fundamental competition 
among men. " With the cessation of the 
unrestricted competition, whose ultimate 
appeal is to arms, all real progress would 
soon be checked, and a moral and intel- 
lectual stagnation would ensue which 
must end in degeneration."^ Therefore, 



u Ibid. p. 29. 
V Ibid. p. 29. 



[25] 



THE MENACE T O THE ID 

men must absolutely oppose all ideas that 
peace is a finality. "Every means must 
therefore be employed to oppose these 
visionary schemes. They must be public- 
ly denounced as what they really are -as 
an unhealthy and feeble Utopia, or a cloak 
for political machinations. Our people 
must learn to see that the maintenance of 
peace never can or may be the goal of a 
policy.'' * 

These publici^s who are incessantly 
reiterating the claim of war are further 
encouraged by the great economists: 
During the very period of the war the 
economic dreams of Germany have been 
most fully expressed and most ably ar- 
gued by Naumann in his great book on 
Central Europe. He too does not suppose 
that at the conclusion of the war "the 
long jubilee years of an everla^ing peace 
will begin."^ Most fully he elaborates the 
necessity of a thoro systematization of 



* Ibid. p. 37. 

w Naumann, Central Europe, p. 7. 
[26] 



EAj^ F I^HE FREE STATE 

the nation in every economic detail. The 
advocate of a state socialism, he would 
unite Germany and Austria as the first 
Step toward a great world power which 
has adequate economic resources. Altho 
Naumann is a socialist, he does not dream 
of peace. His outlook is not the large one 
of peaceful economic inter-relations in the 
world. For him the economic claims of 
Germany and the demands of a greater 
empire mean continuous economic con- 
quest. He sees growing up a nationalized 
socialism, and a systematized national 
economy. When he has expressed this 
hope, he breaks out into this eloquent 
appeal: "Fichte and Hegel nod approval 
from the walls: now, after the war, the 
German is at la^ becoming heart and 
soul a political economic citizen. His ideal 
is and will be the organism and not free 
will, reason and not the blind struggle for 
existence. This con^itutes our freedom, 
our self-development. By its means we 
shall enjoy our golden age as other con- 

[27] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

quering nations in other ages and with 
other abilities and excellences have done 
before us. Our epoch dawns when English 
capitalism has reached and overstepped 
its higher point, and we have been ed- 
ucated for this epoch by Frederick II, 
Kant, Scharnhor^, Siemens, Krupp, Bis- 
marck, Bebel, Legien, Kirdorf , and Ballin. 
Our dead have fallen on the field for the 
sake of this our Fatherland. Germany, 
foremo^ in the world!"'' 

Is there any further need of continu- 
ing to describe the German theory? Have 
we not sufficiently demon^rated how it 
has developed and how the great concep- 
tions of the state as will have been turned 
into the conceptions of the state as abso- 
lute power? Have we not seen how the 
state has been placed above all morality 
and made an arbitrary God of might? 
Everything has been put into subservience 
to the ^ate and "Kultur" has been used 



X Ibid. p. 123. 

[28] 



EAL OF THE FRE E STATE 

as a means not of benefiting mankind 
but of advancing the claims and the de- 
mands of the German Empire. Truly its 
ideals are impossible in a modern world, 
for they are a constant menace to prog- 
ress and peace. Germany, having made 
effective her theory of the state thru 
great commercial and industrial efficien- 
cy, will remain a menace as long as she 
believes and practices what she believes 
in reference to the state. Our task is a 
great one. It implies not only a vidlory, 
but a conversion of the thot of a whole 
people to an ideal of the state entirely 
different from its own. As long as those 
conceptions of the state live, which Ger- 
many now holds, so long will the world 
be unsafe for mankind. 

Over again^ this menacing ideal it 
is the supreme duty of America to reas- 
sert her conception of the ^ate. In her 
ideals the state is fundamentally the in- 
stitute of justice, and society organized 
for the sake of right. It is true that soci- 

[29] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

ety organized to maintain its common life 
and order needs the assertion of authori- 
ty, and authority does exercise power- 
But the state is not founded primarily for 
the sake of power, but for the sake of the 
social welfare and the political well-being 
of men. The state is naught else but so- 
ciety organized for the purpose of the 
maintenance of justice. Its right is deriv- 
ed from those who constitute it, and it 
cannot be an end in itself, and an idealized 
ab^radion of power superimposed upon 
men who have a right to political free- 
dom, and whose government must be 
carried on with their consent. Our ideal 
of the state is that of society maintaining 
itself and bringing blessing to all within 
thru the life of the state. The state is for 
the benefit of those governed, and does 
not find its center in the authority of 
those who govern. The state is but one 
among many which desire to live with 
each other in bonds of universal peace. 
No state has a power and a sovereignty 

[30] 



E A L F^T H^ E FRE E STATE 

that disregards the power and sovereignty 
of another state. It lives its own life but 
it also lives a common life, and is ready 
to fight not for selfish considerations but 
for the deliverance of the oppressed. The 
state as we conceive it is the protedor of 
the weak, and destroys the ^rong that 
hamper happiness on earth. It would 
unite with other states in governing the 
world by justice, and disbelieves that war 
is the proper method of adjuring the 
great questions of righteousness in the 
world. 

These ideals of ours lie at the very 
foundation of our national exigence. 
They were most clearly and definitely 
expressed when we adopted our con^i- 
tution, by such a thinker as Alexander 
Hamilton, who was an inheritor of the 
political liberalism of John Locke. In the 
great Federali^ papers it is fundamen- 
tally affirmed that our government is 
stridlly republican, because "it is evident 
that no other form would be reconcilable 

[31] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

with the genius of the People of America." 
And a republic is "a government which 
derives all its powers diredtly or indirect- 
ly from the great body of the People and 
is administered by persons holding their 
offices during pleasure, for a limited pe- 
riod, or during good behavior. It is essen- 
tial to such a Government, that it be de- 
rived from the great body of the society, 
not from an inconsiderable proportion, or 
a favored class of it ; otherwise a handful 
of tyrannical nobles, exercising their op- 
pressions by a delegation of their powers, 
might aspire to the rank of republicans, 
and claim for their Government the hon- 
orable title of republic. It is sufficient for 
such a Government, that the persons ad- 
ministering it be appointed, either direct- 
ly or indirectly, by the People ; and that 
they hold their appointments by either 
of the tenures just specified; otherwise 
every Government in the United States, 
as well as every other popular Govern- 
ment that has been or can be well organ- 

[32] 



EAL OF T HE FREE STATE 

ized or well executed, would be degraded 
from the republican charadler."* Such an 
ideal lies at the foundation of our govern- 
ment and shapes all our adions. And be- 
cause we have this belief in the relation 
of the great body of the people to govern- 
ment, we must fundamentally be opposed 
to war except when it is forced upon us. 
A democracy is generally the greatest 
safeguard against war and when it enters 
into it, it seeks not its own. In Europe, 
and especially in Germany, the advance 
of democracy has been hindered. Mr. 
Croly well says : " As a consequence of 
their development as nations, the Euro- 
pean peoples have been unable to get 
along without a certain infusion of de- 
mocracy; but it was for the most part 
essential to their national interest that 
such an infusion should be strictly limit- 
ed."^ This infusion has grown in other 
European nations than the German. The 



* The Federalist, No. 38. 

y Croly, The Promise of American Life, p. 265. 

[33] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 



present menace is the effort of Germany 
to overthrow the democratic ideal in the 
world. Its conditions are truly that of a 
nation which is moved by the love of 
power and the desire for pre-eminence 
and dominion. Consequently it must op- 
pose and will oppose every paper of state 
which President Wilson sends forth. He 
has become the raouthpiece of our coun- 
try and the hope of democracy. In his 
conception "Government is merely the 
executive organ of society, the organ 
through which its habit acts, through 
which its will becomes operative, through 
which it adapts itself to its environment 
and works out for itself a more effective 
life."*" The need of the state is the need 
of the life of society. And as society ex- 
ists of all classes of men. In its very being 
it must be essentially democratic, what- 
ever may be its form. Our present task 
is to defend the ideal of the state, of the 
democratic state, but not in the terms of 



oWilson, The State, p. 576. 
[34] 



EAL OFT HE FREE STATE 

the idealism of the eighteenth century. 
Our problem is to maintain the free slate 
with its large political rights for both men 
and women, with its great moral tasks, in 
a new age. The old American ideas of our 
republic need an adaptation to an age of 
large social relationship, and of great in- 
ternational connections. We have inherent 
in our life and in our political traditions 
that conception of the state which the 
world needs, but we must be able to make 
it clear to men what are the essentials 
and what the accidentals of our faith. It 
is necessary for us to distinguish clearly 
between our true ideals and the mis- 
developments and dangers that threaten 
us. We need to be aroused to a clearer 
political consciousness and to a definite 
grasp of what nationality and the state 
mean in terms of world interest. There 
are, it seems to me, three great dangers 
in our own development which we must 
meet. There exist three great problems 
which we must work out. 

[35] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

The first problem is that of maintain- 
ing our ancient inheritance of freedom in 
an increasingly social and economic age. 
There is no doubt in the mind of anyone 
who has observed and studied the trend 
of affairs, that it will be increasingly 
necessary for the state to control great 
economic interests. Trade, commerce and 
industry cannot remain merely individual 
affairs. We are tied up with all the world, 
and therefore, these relationships must 
be expressed in terms of the state. So vast 
have become the connections of great bus- 
iness that to allow it to go uncontrolled 
will mean continuous industrial warfare. 
So strong are the organizations of labor 
that to permit them to make their own 
solutions apart from the interests of the 
whole state is impossible. Our task is to 
regulate without suppression, and to con- 
trol without destroying. We will not be 
able to maintain political liberty without 
economic control, but if we proceed to an 
excessive systematic management of bus- 

[36] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 

iness hitherto private, we shall drift by 
practice into an idea of the ^tate which 
contradidls the conception of the repub- 
lic that our fathers had. It is imperative 
that we should find the balance between 
necessary direction of great business and 
labor, of trade, industry and commerce, 
and the freedom and initiative which 
ought not to be taken away from individ- 
ual ability and from the personal and cor- 
porate rights of groups of individuals. We 
must be careful indeed not to perpetuate 
what the exigencies of the war have 
forced upon us in the control and manage- 
ment of business. It is our duty to preach 
against the selfishness, the greed, the 
arbitrariness of those who are forcing us 
constantly to control what ought to be 
uncontrolled. In order to escape that dom- 
inating socilization, which will impair our 
freedom, we mnst advocate a great and 
just social morality that enters into every 
avenue of business. 

Our second problem is to become ef- 

[37] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 

ficient and still remain democratic. Ap- 
parently the increase of efficiency implies 
the increase of machinery. The growth of 
machinery makes individual men mere 
cogs in a great ^rudlure. The most ef- 
ficient nation today is Germany, and its 
efficiency is the outgrowth of its high cen- 
traUzation and its autocratic government. 
If efficiency cannot be made democratic, 
it were better that we should continue 
bungling and be free, than to be efficient 
and lose our freedom. Efficiency must be- 
come a matter of education. It is our task 
to lead the people step by step into the 
realization that the modern world de- 
mands in the life of the state that we shall 
cooperate far more largely than ever be- 
fore. The method of imposing efficiency 
upon a people is a quicker way of gaining 
the end, but it is not the fairer and juster 
way. National efficiency is liable to be in- 
terpreted in terms of a military establish- 
ment. We do not doubt that our nation 
will permanently need a larger army and 

[38] 



EAL OF THE FREE STATE 



navy, unless we succeed in obtaining ac- 
tual disarmament, we cannot live in peace 
because of our evil neighbor across the 
ocean; but the question is shall his enmity- 
compel us to endanger democracy thru 
efficiency. It is a very serious question, 
whether it is possible to have a minutely 
organized and thoroly efficient govern- 
ment and a people similarly organized 
without detriment to that ideal of freedom 
for which America stands. Far be it from 
me to decry just efficiency, but let us not 
be overpowered by this conception to the 
exclusion of liberty and independence. 

The third danger is the loss, in this 
socialized age of efficiency, of the right 
of personality. It is true that we cannot 
suffer arbitrary individualism. It is neces- 
sary for all of us to impose greater limi- 
tation upon our freedom, but neverthe- 
less this is the question, whether we shall 
be hampered in the inherent rights of the 
free search after truth and the free deci- 
sion about the truth in every sphere. The 

[39] 



THE MENACE TO THE ID 



iiicreasing socilization is liable to hamper 
public opinion. Public opinion is liable to 
be deprived of that variety of ideas which 
keep it from stagnating. But the death of 
public opinion is the death of democracy. 
Personality is that which from time to 
time stirs up public opinion and brings 
it to itself and purifies its turbid waters. 
We need personality to maintain our 
moral self-rest. It is an exceedingly bad 
thing that we must be controlled by laws 
and threats of punishment to keep us 
from doing the wrong. Our appeal in great 
public and economic questions must be 
to the personal conscience. Some of the 
evils from which we are suffering are due 
to the fact that the conscience of individ- 
uals and of corporations has been lax. 
To awaken personality means to awaken 
the conscience and will aid us in solving 
great problems without increasing legis- 
lation. We must maintain the right of 
personality for the sake of religious free- 
dom. The danger in a highly socialized 

[40] 



EAL OFTHE FRE E STATE 

society is the danger of interfering with 
the rights and prerogatives of the human 
conscience in spiritual matters. At some 
point or other individual religious con- 
victions will be touched and hampered 
by a control Wrongly centralized and 
thoroly organized. The danger does not 
seem imminent, but it is nevertheless 
present. It belongs to the right of person- 
ality to sandify patriotism by religion, 
but it does not belong to the rights of 
patriotism to make demands upon religion 
which are not within the very motives 
of that religion. The church dare not 
rule the ^ate, but the ^ate dare not dic- 
tate to the church. It is necessary that we 
should think clearly and definitely upon 
this great question of personality as it 
touches our highest intere^s. But with 
these reservations clearly underwood and 
with the high hope that we shall meet the 
demands of our age without losing our 
democracy and being impaired in the 
rights of our personality, we shall accept 

[41] 



THE MENACE TO THE FREE STATE 

the challenge of the present. Let us con- 
clude as we began by making our own 
the prayer of Longfellow for the Ship of 
State, when he sings: 

"Our hearts, our hopes, are all vvith thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee." 




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